The trade union confederation disagrees with the claim that slowing wage growth is good for the economy. Rising incomes are boosting the economy, and today's main problems are low productivity, unchanging work processes and a failure to exploit technological opportunities.

According to Peep Peterson, the chairman of the Estonian Trade Union Confederation, smart working models will not be imposed and there is still a reliance on cheap labour.
"We could rejoice with employers if we could get productivity up. That would be a really long-term and sustainable achievement, but it requires a very self-critical view of where we put our money and how we use the potential of our employees in the smartest way," Peterson commented.

According to the trade union leader, Estonia's common goal should be to maintain at least a 6% wage increase in any case. "A 0.3 percentage point lower wage increase will postpone the European average by one year," he commented.

Statistics published today show that annual wage growth is slowing for the fourth quarter in a row.